Capitalistic affection!

by Frank Davey

83 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1982

About the author

Frank Davey has been a poet, editor, small-magazine publisher, literary critic, and cultural critic in Canada since 1961. He is editor and co-founder of the influential poetry newsletter Tish (1961-63) and since 1965 editor of Open Letter, the Canadian journal of writing and theory. With Fred Wah in 1984, he founded SwiftCurrent, the world’s first online literary magazine, and operated it until 1990. His more than forty books include Louis Dudek and Raymond Souster (1980), The Abbotsford Guide to India (1986), Reading Canadian Reading (1988), Canadian Literary Power (1994), and Back to the War (2005).

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tarzan was the first.
Tarzan & Jane were my first
literary relationship.
My first family, swinging
across the first page of The Star Weekly
like Genesis.
Oppenheimer looked for a sunhat
in the shops of Los Alamos. Hess
typed requisitions for the Auschwitz furnaces.
I watched Tarzan
throw back his head & tug his knife
from the corpse of the evil leopard. Jane
detached her bra from its claws. All weekend
they struck poses on the first page
asking me to believe in the Sunday Comics.

- !, pg. 11

* * *

Dear Frank,

The spirit of the Y.M.C.A. and of Kipling and
of Baden-Powell - all meet in Tarzan
- Marshall McLuhan

- pg. 17

* * *

Johnny Hazard flew
at the top of the daily comics.
Top banana. Top dog.

Johnny didn't like dogs.
He preferred .50 calibre machineguns.
They could shoot all the way
from the top of the Vancouver Sun
comics page. Johnny was a top hand.
Top gun. Taller than Tarzan in a treetop. Johnny
was 2 o'clock high. Johnny always
dove straight out of the sun

- Johnny Hazard, pg. 25

* * *

I loved Rhonda Fleming.
She had red hair like Copper Calhoun
& rode a horse the way Jane
rode lions & elephants.
Her ranch was always saved, or regained,
by Randolf Scott. I always replaced
Randolf Scott when I thought of Rhonda Fleming.
She looked great on a horse but was helpless
in gunfights. Her best moves
were the smuggled gun, the muffin surprise.
I loved the last reel, when Randolf & I
embraced her against the Mulholland Drive sunset.

- !, pg. 39

* * *

Here's Jiggs dancing again,
his head through a picture Maggie
has just thrown.
'I wuz framed,' he shouts, two-stepping
into the next one.

- Bringing up Father, pg. 46

* * *

Fearless Fosdick was my favourite detective.
Fearless Frank, I called myself.
Fearless Fosdick shot Dick Tracy full of holes.
Fearless Fosdick chased speeding cars
in real life, shooting right through
all the citizens in the crossfire.

- !, pg. 55

* * *

A hot-shot Navy flyboy.
Wore a dark bow-tie
& freshly pressed pants.
Had a wife named Christie, who
giggled when Buzz got rescued from enemy agents,
who clapped her hands in glee
when he got assigned
to the newest black airplane. They lived
in a bungalow in the PMQ's
with daffodils lining their tiny sidewalk.
'On these planes of tomorrow
the security of the free world will rest'
the admiral told a solemn Buzz
& his sidekick Dooley. 'Yessir,' said Buzz,
& marched grimly to the post barbershop
for his weekly haircut.

- Buzz Sawyer, pg. 64

* * *

Like Jiggs, Spidey
has high standards
when he comes to women.
His number 1 girl, MJ,
thinks Peter Parker's a wimp,
falls in love with Kraven
of the lion-haired armpits,
Betty, his number 2 girl,
wants to be a cultie, his aunt
long for the long arms
of Doctor Octopus. Don't complain,
our Petey knows what he likes.
Gets it too. This week
cons MJ into a date:
'Yahoo,' he cries, doing Spidey twirls
across the ceiling,
'Her greedy little conniving heart
is mine again!'

- !, pg. 79